


of things both sacred and profane

by whiplash



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Not A Fix-It, S1E7: Marooned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6161239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of an era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of things both sacred and profane

His fingers claw through soft moss and cold dirt. His boots slide in the wet mud as he tries to roll onto his belly. There's not one part of him that doesn't ache or throb in pain. He's confused for a while, unable to place himself in time and space. But as soon as he lifts his head, catching sight of Len and becoming aware of the abandoned forest and the looming night sky, he remembers and he _knows_. Knows what will happen next as sure as if he just read about it in a history book.

The clearing's lit by the full moon and the faraway stars. It's a pale light. A _cold_ light.

And, now, it's true that Mick's never been much for signs and omens. Never been one to put his faith in fortune tellers or lucky charms. But then there's a difference between not putting on your lucky pair of underpants before a job and willfully refusing to see what's right in front of you. And right now, right here, the moon and the stars; they all whisper the same story.

They tell him what he, deep inside, already knows. They say that they're not here for him. They say that this place, surrounded by such heavy silence and illuminated by such cold light, could never be the stage of Mick's death. Because Mick's not meant to die with his eyeballs frozen solid and frost blooming like spring flowers on his skin. And Len should know better. He should remember that there's an agreement between Mick Rory and the devil. Holy and sacred, it states that when Mick goes down, fire will rain from the sky and the smoke will be too thick and the flames too high for the stars to twinkle down at him with their distant curiosity.

To even consider another ending would be _profane_.

Glancing at his partner's back, ramrod straight like it only ever is when Len's torn himself up real bad on the inside, Mick allows himself to grimly acknowledge that since he's to live, someone else will die. Someone else will bleed out here in the silent woods, a sacrifice to the pale moon and the cold light. And if that knowledge tears Mick up inside, well, at least the blame's not his to bear. The burden, yes, but not the blame. That's on his treacherous partner.

Gritting his teeth, Mick brings himself up to his knees only to find that it's hard to keep his balance. His vision swims and there's bile pushing up at the back of his throat. Too many blows to the head, even for someone like him. Someone with nothing but _meat_ for brains.

“Told you,” he groans, swallowing down nausea, “that'll be the last time you hit me.”

He suddenly remembers his mother, strands of gray in her hair and the skin under her eyes always smeared with black. Her hands had been strong and calloused as it wrapped around his arm, holding his squirming little boy body in place as she landed blow after blow against his backside. _It'll hurt_ _me_ _more than_ _you_ _,_ she'd always said, disappointment and weariness thick in her voice, and he'd never once believed her. Only now, almost forty years later, he finds that he finally does.

“You were right,” Len agrees and the cold gun whines as if to punctuate his words. It's not the first time they've done this. Pointed the business ends of their guns at each other, squaring off like they're old time western villains. This time, it's different though. This time Mick's unarmed. There's no equality. No balance. What they're doing, what Len's doing, it's not a Mexican stand-off as much as it's an attempted execution.

No matter, he tries to convince himself, ignoring the part of him that aches with the loss of the heat gun. He'll find something else. Something better. Anyway, it's far from the first time that he's killed a man with his bare hands. True, he'd promised to make Len burn but perhaps it's better this way. At least now there'll be a body left. Something to bury under the frozen ground.

“That the plan?” he asks, stalling for time as he gathers his strength. “Take me out in the middle of nowhere, where no one can find the body?”

It's a cold and calculated move, so very typical of his partner. His partner, who now fancies himself a hero. As if, out of the two of them, Mick's not the better man. Unlike Len he doesn't mean to leave his partner's corpse for the rats and foxes to feast on. He'll bury the man, put a marker on his grave. Some rocks, or heavy branches. That way, when he tells Lisa, she'll have somewhere to go. 

“I wish there were some other way, Mick,” Len's saying, the hurt in his voice as cold and clear as the stars above them, “but you're dangerous. A liability. To the team.”

“Team,” Mick growls, feeling the word like a knife in his gut. “You and I were a _team_!”

Partners, Len had called them. And Mick had fooled himself into thinking that the word meant friend. Meant family. He had thought that it _all_ meant something; Len inviting him into his life, trusting him with his precious plans and his baby sister, even giving him the heat gun.

“What happened to you?” he demands only for Len to snarl at him like a mad dog.  
  
“People _change_ ,” he claims, his face twisting into something old and ugly. He looks like a stranger, except for the eyes. They're just the same as they always were. Angry. Resentful. Hurting. And soon enough they'll be empty. Then it'll be up to Mick to wipe the blood off Len's face and drag those eyelids shut. The knowledge _hurts_. There's a part of him that howls at the wrongness of it.

That must be the slow part of him. The one that makes people say he's thick. Stupid.

“You think you're some kind of hero,” he hears himself say, “but deep down you're still the same punk kid I saved in juvie. You haven't got the guts. You wanna kill me? Kill me!”

But Len won't. The poor bastard doesn't know it, but the deck's stacked against him. Mick's on his feet now. There's not much distance between them. Len's already tired himself out, dragging Mick out here in the middle of nowhere. Already made a mistake, wasting time pontificating and trying to talk himself into the kill.

The full moon's bright. The stars shine like diamonds. They're waiting for someone to die.

“Only one of us is walking out of here alive,” Mick says, his chest hurting with the knowledge that he'll miss Len. Miss his dumb smirk and his stupid goggles. He'll even miss the puns.

“You're right,” he hears.

Then, before Mick can react, the cold gun fires.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Of Mice and Men' made me cry. So did this stupid episode.


End file.
